The International Management Institute (IMI), Kolkata, has witnessed close to five per cent rise in average salary package for its 2016-18 batch, despite 52 per cent increase in batch size.

The batch of 120 students received 112 offers from 46 recruiters. Ten students opted out of the placement process to set up entrepreneurship ventures or join their family businesses.

The average salary package increased to ₹6.54 lakh a year, up from ₹6.23 lakh for the previous batch of 71 students (2015-17), Arindam Banik, Director, IMI, told BusinessLine . The highest package offered was ₹20 lakh, almost 23 per cent higher than that bagged by the previous batch.

Of the 46, 21 were first-time recruiters. As many as 15 students had bagged pre-placement offers, which is usually given based on the candidate’s performance during summer internship.

According to Banik, there has been an overall improvement in job market. “Jobs, particularly those in the banking and financial services sector, have started improving in the last one year. Apart from BFSI, we also saw good participation from e-commerce, consulting, manufacturing and FMCG sectors,” Banik said.

New courses

IMI, which currently offers two-year flagship programme on Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM), is exploring the possibility of introducing one-year executive management programme and an MBA in entrepreneurship subject to approval from its board as well as AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education), which is its regulatory body.

While the executive MBA programme is likely to be rolled out in 2019, MBA in entrepreneurship will be on offer from 2020.

“There is a strong demand for executive management programme and we would like to tap this segment subject to requisite approvals,” he said.

Being a standalone private business school under AICTE, IMI cannot apply for two courses at the same time, he said.